By Samuel John Klein of Portland, Oregon - An Independent Graphic Designer living in a city that was built upon an ancient Unicorn burial ground.

04 December 2007

[sign_design] A Rough Proposal for a Metropolitan Portland Route Sign

1172.

A rather rough rough. The rose represents on behalf of the Rose City, of course, and was clipped from a lower-res photograph I have here strictly for visualization purposes.

The rose graphic might not be completely acceptable for a metropolitan route network–after all, Portland isn't the whole of the Metro area, and other Metro area towns that are not Portland can be somewhat resentful of a Rose-City-centric symbol for a badged route running through thier neighborhoods.

But this gets the general gist of the idea across. The pentagonal shield is, of course, the commonly-used county route cutout, and the idea of personalizing the shield with a commonly-recognizable symbol rather than words (such as METRO ROUTE) was inspired by the way Charlotte NC adorns the Charlotte Route 4 sign with the crown from the city's logo.

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This Here Blogger

Graphic designer, writer, editor. Worker in the Big Machine; the quintessential working-class native Oregonian, I drive some of the grimier gears so the Big Cats and Kittens don't have to. Am in the process of reinventing myself as the artist I always ought to have been. My blog is The ZehnKatzen Times.

This sentence, courtesy of commenter "JD", will help you remember the initials in order:All Across Portland Our Streets Wind Around Mossy Yards. Traffic Snarls May Mean Jammed Cars, Cranky Motorists Making Minimal Headway. Harried Commuters Just Love Going Slow.

Commenter Dave DiNucci, using enough of the letters from each word to eliminate ambiguity, gives us the following two possiblilities: This first one plays on the fact that alphabetically-arranged streets going north from Burnside are named for Portland founders while those going south do not:ANcestors ASsociated Portland Oregon STreets With ALphabetic MORtals, Yet Toward SAlem, MAInly MADe JEjune, COLUmnar, CLiche MARked MIxtures. MONotones HARmonize HALfway, COLLiding JAuntily. Lines Gently SHim.

This second one is more poetic but less PDX-centered, but works the Gorge in, as well as Lincoln, Grant, and Sheridan: